"IN PULLUS VERITAS"
(IN CHICKEN, TRUTH)
Author: Gillian Slater
E-mail: LeoricGS@aol.com
Rating: PG -13
Disclaimer: As always, these characters do not belong to me, they are the property of the show's creators, and I'm borrowing them for my own sinister purposes...
PART SIX
Closing the door as much as was possible with the splintered wood around the lock, Michael looked squarely at his creator. Once a detested authority figure with an ever-constant expression of superiority, now he had a bitterly self-depreciating look about him, mingled with one of sorrow as though he believed his whole, precious project was a failure.
"Look, doc', I can see you're less than thrilled with all of this, but I want to say that... well, this isn't what I wanted either. I mean, I know I've moaned and complained about wishing Lisa and Heather could know it all, but this... it wasn't the way..."
"I can't believe it." Morris said in his hollow tone, seeming not to have heard any of Michael's commiserations, "All this time I've lectured you about secrecy, about being guarded in all things, and I was supposed to be your example. Your identity was to be forgotten, erased, but I've brought it all to light with one foolish assumption. Me. I did it."
"Doc', it's not all your fault. I can see how you would have thought I'd spilled the truth... the way we were..."
"Indeed. The way you were." He glowered at his subject then, "Tell me this, Mr. Wiseman, if you hadn't explained your identity to her, how it is that the two of you came to be so intimate?"
"Well, I think she kind of likes me for who she thinks I am - 'Mr. Newman'. God, I'm sorry Doc', this is all my doing..."
"Yes. It is." Came the harsh reply.
Michael stopped his apology short, a touch confused at the doctor's sudden change of heart. He'd expected Morris' guilt-trip to last a little longer...
"This all began with you disobeying my orders to stay in the townhouse over Christmas. For that matter none of this would have happened if you had come with me to my sister's in the first place, so yes, you started it." He softened his tone a little then, and lowered his eyes once more.
"However, I won't deny there were other contributing factors. The fact that you had some kind of episode right before Mrs. Wiseman's eyes didn't help - and you and I are going to have a talk about that at some point - but even that might not have blown your cover completely. No, I'm man enough to take my share of the blame, Mr. Wiseman, and purely in the interests of sparing the life that I spent over ten years creating, I'll testify as to my part in this before the Pentagon's review board. I can't guarantee that they won't decide to terminate your wife and daughter..."
"Terminate! No, no, Doc' this is NOT going to the Pentagon!" Michael said firmly.
"Mr. Wiseman, my superiors..."
"...Don't need to know one single piece of what went on here tonight! Right now your superiors, right up to the President, are all going to bed stuffed with Christmas dinner and too much wine. There's no way they could get wind of this unless we tell 'em."
"Which we have to."
"And wind up on their hit-list yourself ? Fact is Doc', I cost a couple of billion bucks but you - you can be replaced." His tone was one of hard-edged mimicry of the top project officials, threatening the very real consequences that Morris seemed to ignore out of unwavering loyalty to his government. "Even if they don't kill you for exposing their whacked-out Frankenstein behaviour to civilians, you'll be off the project. Your life's work will be given to someone else, and I'll lose Lisa and Heather! Now, tell me again why we have to inform the Pentagon?"
Morris thought seriously about Michael's words. He knew his perceptive creation told the truth, knew just how his superiors would deal with him and the Wisemans.
There was a long, tense silence as Morris pondered the weighty decision upon which the entire furtue of four lives would rest.
"It's true," he admitted finally, grudgingly, "And I suppose this had better remain a profound secret even from our own. But Mr. Wiseman, if they ever tell anyone..."
"No way. I'll stake my second existence on this, doc'. Our secret is theirs. But first, they need to know exactly what they're not allowed to tell anyone. So far, they've noticed similarities, seen me crush a gun with two fingers and you've said my name in front of them. Right now all they are is confused, and I - we owe them an explanation." He gestured expressively towards his living room. "It's your experiment, doc'. I know how you like to brag about the miracles of science - now's your chance."
Morris gave a loud huff of reluctance, but headed back into the house. Lisa rose automatically as Morris entered the living room, closely followed by Michael.
"Okay, time's up gentlemen. I think I've been patient enough. We've earned our explanation, so spill it." Morris stared hard at Mrs. Wiseman. One thing he would not do was take orders from a civilian. He briefly considered barking a reprimand at her, but from somewhere deep in his mind came the reminder that right now she was not only confused, but probably scared witless by the events of the evening. He took a calming breath and softened his tone a little.
"Why don't we all sit down, and you'll get your wish." Lisa complied, and Morris sat opposite her in an armchair. Michael pulled up a soft footstool and sat at Morris' side. The scientist cleared his throat several times, searching for the right words.
"Firstly you should be made aware that under no circumstances is this information..."
"Who in the hell are you people!?" Lisa boomed, suspense pushing her anger back to the fore. Morris waited for the tension to recede again before continuing in a low, serious voice which was nevertheless underscored with a touch of that vanity Michael had seen so clearly in the doctor.
"The answer to your question has taken me a little over ten years' work. A top-secret branch of the United States Government commissioned me to research and ultimately to construct a synthetic human being. The perfect warrior of the future - a man engineered to be stronger, faster, more resilient, with enhanced hearing and vision, a man so superior that he could be entrusted with the most dangerous and secret missions and that he could even potentially fight, and win, a war. An advanced soldier so powerful..."
"Doc'!" Michael cut in, suddenly finding a sense of modesty that he was sure hadn't been there before, but now squirmed uncomfortably as Morris listed his extraordinary capabilities. "Cut to the chase, huh?" Morris' face showed a little annoyance at being given orders by his own creation, but he nodded slightly and continued.
"Ahem, very well. Suffice to say that the man sitting next to me, whom you both know as Mr. Newman of Internal Revenue, is the product of my... experiment." Michael found himself looking down at the floor in embarrassment as the two pairs of eyes facing him grew wide with awe.
"Whoa! So, that's how you did it! That thing with the gun!" Heather exclaimed.
"Indeed," Morris confirmed, "Just like he was able to take eight bullets in the chest and recover in a few days. He heals much faster than an ordinary man." The scientist's face was beginning to look quite smug as he detailed his prototype before his rapt audience. Lisa turned her gaze away from Michael then and back to the doctor with a look close to foreboding on her face.
"So, before, when you called him..." she didn't finish the sentence, didn't need to. They were each painfully aware of what passed just minutes ago to change all their circumstances.
"That, Mrs. Wiseman, is the other factor that has brought what was meant to be a top-secret project constantly into your life." He glared accusingly once more at Michael, who gave an innocent shrug. "You see, I can build an artificial person from scratch given the right conditions and materials, but I can't make it function without a brain, and that no one has ever been able to synthesise to any degree of accuracy. We didn't want a robot, we wanted a man, and for that we needed a living brain that was, how shall I say... no longer needed by it's body. A dead man. And it just so happened that I was loitering in the ER looking for a donor when your husband was brought in after his subway accident. I was told there was no hope so..."
They were staring at him again, Michael knew. Even though he did not meet their gaze just yet, he felt their eyes on him, torn between disbelief that the husband and father lost to both of them for over ten months was not, in fact, dead, and admission that it must indeed be true, as their astute minds gradually sequenced of all the little pieces of evidence which had been steered towards this conclusion.
Irrationally, considering he'd dreamed of this day since the beginning of his second existence, Michael felt a wave of nauseating fear. Fear of rejection, for, he asked himself silently, how could they accept that this person, this Mr. Newman was really the same man who had loved and longed for his family ever since he was so cruelly ripped away from them to a new life of training and service to a demanding government?
But he had to know. Whether he was to be rejected or welcomed, he'd only find the answer in their faces. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet theirs.
"You said you wanted the truth, Lisie," he said, his voice low, "And I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you sooner, but..."
"But Mr. Wiseman's entire existence is a most guarded secret, Mrs. Wiseman," Morris interrupted sternly, "And I must ask you and your daughter to swear that it will remain so."
Lisa flinched a little as Morris again said Michael's true name, but made no reply, her eyes still fixated on his tense features. It was Heather who recovered her speech first.
"You're Dad...?" She asked Michael tentatively, "But you don't look anything like him."
"That's because the doc' here gave me a bit of a makeover. Believe me, I hardly recognise myself anymore. But it's me inside, sweetie, really."
"This isn't happening." Lisa's whisper turned all their glances in her direction. "Michael's dead. He died in an accident ten months ago, and we went to his funeral and..."
"Yeah, the doc' told me about that. You know I always loved that orange dress."
Her rapid-fire denials were halted as she looked from one face to the other. Mr. Newman's earnest expression held a silent plea for her to accept him for who he really was, the scientist's dark face was a mask of stern authority, but also resigned and neutral as he watched the exchange, and Heather's seemed strangely distant and contemplative. Lisa could almost see the cogs of her daughter's mind turning, thinking the exact same thoughts that had gone through her own mind during the course of the evening, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together.
Silence settled over the small group, causing an awkward stalemate as each waited for someone else to speak. It was Morris who, after several long minutes, snapped them all out of the freeze-frame.
"Well, this is all really riveting, this sitting here in silence, but it's now..." he glanced down at his wristwatch, "Twenty after ten. And since our little debriefing is over, I think it's time I took you home Mr. Wiseman." Michael looked questioningly at Morris' looming figure as he rose from the armchair and smoothed his suit jacket down. Seeing the confusion on his subject's upturned face, he explained, "It's just like you said : they needed to be informed of your identity. Now they know. Let's go."
"Doc'..." Michael rose quickly to counter Morris' order, but his argument did not even find its footing before Morris shot him his most crippling glare.
"Don't think for one minute you're getting things all your own way in this..."
"Don't think for one minute I couldn't knock you out and tie you up outside for the night." Michael raised his chin defiantly to anchor the threat. Michael's obstinate expression did not even slightly betray the wave of guilt that leaped briefly inside him as the doctor's face incorporated a merest hint of shock and hurt. Loyalty to Dr. Morris? Where'd I pick that up from?
Pushing it to the back of his mind, he continued strategically on. He'd spent half his life in board meetings pitching to stubborn clients - he knew the drill. Automatically, he eased into a less intimidating posture and softened his tone. He'd made his point, now it was time to bargain. "Look, this isn't going to damage the project any more than it already is, but don't you understand that I can't just give my family news like this and then leave! I... we need time."
"That wasn't part of the agreement, Mr. Wiseman," Morris growled, "Or have you forgotten the rule about having no contact with anyone from your former life under penalty of death?"
"What!?" Lisa exclaimed, standing suddenly. Both heads turned to meet her startled glance. Michael opened his mouth to answer, but Morris got there first.
"That's right, Mrs. Wiseman. Your husband was well aware of this particular rule from the beginning, and his repeated violation of it should have caused you both to be terminated a long time ago."
His voice had gone cold again, Michael noted, as it always did whenever he spoke of the ever-present threat to Lisa and Heather which was supposed to keep him docile and obedient, but in fact had always acted quite to the contrary. Surely the doc' should have realised by now that his family were everything to him, and that enforcing separation from them would only make a loving husband and father all the more determined.
Lisa's face paled visibly as Morris mentioned 'termination', and she drew both arms protectively around Heather, who was now hovering at her elbow, listening intently. She swallowed her fear and faced her challenger squarely.
"He's right, doctor, we do need time." Morris knew she wasn't asking his permission. "I think I speak for the both of us when I say that my head is about to explode from shock..." Heather nodded vehemently in agreement, "...And right now I just want to calm down and have a serious talk with Mr.... uh, with Michael. And I think I'd like you to be elsewhere."
"I'm not leaving without..." The doctor began.
"At the moment Michael is my guest over Christmas. You're not. Want me to kick you out?" Morris' face was incredulous and he made no reply. "This is a matter for the members... or at least the potential members of the Wiseman family... only."
She glanced quickly at Michael and saw the flash of pride on his face as she stood up to his dominating keeper. On a sudden impulse, he stepped over to stand beside his wife and daughter, the three of them presenting a united front, resolute and inflexible against the demands of the sullenly glowering scientist. He stepped right up to Michael then, so that he was almost nose-to-nose with his obstinate protégé.
"Mr. Wiseman, every time you deliver an ultimatum to me, just remember that I built the thing you're standing up in right now, and I can tear you out of it twice as fast - without the use of anaesthesia." Michael gulped visibly, but remained rigid as Morris continued, his voice dropping almost to a snarl. "I will be outside that front door at six a.m..."
"Eleven." Michael demanded brashly.
"Nine." The doctor countered his barter smoothly.
"Done."
"And you will either walk or be dragged out of here and taken straight back to the townhouse..." He stopped abruptly as Michael impulsively threw his arms around his boss in a crushing hug.
"I love you." His imitation of childish delight took Morris completely by surprise, and he huffed and tried to shrug off Mr. Wiseman's sudden sarcastic affection. Lisa and Heather, too, were stunned by the abstract action, and despite the tension they had felt just seconds ago, both chuckled lightly.
"Mr. Wiseman, get off me please - now." Michael released the doctor and watched, smiling broadly, as he smoothed down his crumpled suit, gave the grateful trio one last stern glance, then whirled about and stalked out of the front door.
As they heard the doctor's classic car roar into life and drive away, they let out a collective breath. Without his intimidating presence there was space to think, to talk, to come to terms with what had been revealed.
"Sooo, you wanna run that whole thing by me again?" Michael turned to meet his wife's questioning gaze. Her tone had become one of idle curiosity, but he saw the emotional turmoil her casual front attempted to hide. In keeping with the lighter mood, he matched her tone.
"You mean, in English this time? Sure. You want to sit?"
"No, I think I've sat quite enough."
"Right well," he cleared his throat a little uncomfortably, "Ahem, so I was basically walking, or stumbling, home from the bar with Roger after that snot-nosed rookie Craig Spence beat me to the promotion - for which I dangled him out of a tenth-storey window, by the way." He grinned briefly at the memory of Spence's girlish shrieking, then resumed.
"I went to the subway and... well, you know how that ended." He saw the grief flash briefly across the faces of his wife and daughter. "I thought the accident must have finished me off for sure, but the next thing I know, the doc' is standing in front of me sprouting all this nonsense about artificial people. He makes me this offer : I can be given a new life as long as I accept total control by him and his people and never try to have any contact with anyone from my past, or, I can die permanently - that's it, game over. Not much of a choice, huh? So I chose to live. I blacked out again and when I came around, I looked in a mirror, and this is what looked back." He waved a hand to indicate his face, then let it drop back to his side.
Michael's tale was met at first by stunned silence from the two listeners, who, even hearing it for a second time, found it almost unbelievable.
"And, this is how you know so much about us? All of us, and our lives, our house..."
"Exactly that - our lives, our house. I was a part of it for eighteen years, Lisie. Have I been forgotten so fast?" Lisa drew in her breath sharply, and Michael instantly regretted his last question. It was cold of him to suggest that they'd forget him. Cold, and entirely untrue.
"Well, excuse me for not jumping instantly to the conclusion that the scruffy tramp I bought a pair of shoes for one night was really my late husband returned from the grave!!"
Fire blazed in Lisa's eyes as she spoke, but was almost immediately put out by her brimming, angry tears as she turned away from Michael and covered her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably as the emotion overcame her.
His large, slender hands were on her heaving shoulders, then, drawing her gently, subtly closer to him and enfolding her in a cocoon of solace formed by his strong, protective arms. He did not turn her to face him, since it was the very sight of his face, so irreconcilably different from what it was meant to be, which distressed her so.
Watching the emotional scene before her, Heather suddenly understood the inexplicable feeling of rightness that had come over her barely a quarter-hour earlier, as she had seen the then 'Mr. Newman' kiss her mother tenderly. It had been her father all along, and some part of her, she realised in awe, must have known it from the beginning. Why else would she have ever encouraged the romance between the two of them, or found that she enjoyed his company and wanted to see more of him in their small household, especially since all of the other men to have sought her mom's attentions had so repulsed her? With a shudder she recalled Gerald Misenbach, the 'pygmy warrior' whom she had so fervently hoped would pale in comparison to the mysterious Mr. Newman. Heather smiled. No pygmy could ever stand up to her dad.
Michael, his arms still encircling his wife in a compassionate embrace, glanced over to where his daughter stood watching. He caught the smile on her face and wondered at its meaning. Did she perhaps begin to accept who he was? His heart leaped at the prospect. Silently, he took one arm from about Lisa and held it out to Heather. She hesitated only momentarily before stepping shyly forward to grasp her hand in his.
They must have looked odd, standing there in a huddle, Michael thought, a smile creeping up his tear-streaked face. When had he started crying? But, God, he had prayed for this. Prayed for the chance to make his second life really count. Sure, he was a government super-warrior, but that meant almost nothing to him in comparison with being a husband and a father. Those were the things which mattered, which had shaped his character and given him the fortitude to bear his confinement and separation from his family. And, he thought with a grin, that there was a certain irony to it all - that Doctor Morris, the man who had orchestrated and inflicted these months of torture, had finally been the one to end it, albeit unwillingly. He would have to thank him properly later.
"I, ah, think maybe we could all use something to drink right now." Lisa murmured, having regained her composure somewhat. Her mind clearer now, she was acutely aware of Michael's arms around her, and while it was not unwelcome, she felt there were things still to be said between them, things better said face-to-face, and without Heather listening in.
She gently slid out of his embrace and went into the kitchen. Michael looked down at Heather, whose hand was still clasped in his own. The look she returned was one of understanding and encouragement.
"I get it. You guys want to 'discuss' - I'm gone." As always, she echoed the phrase Lisa usually used to prompt Heather to exit, and turned to leave. Michael stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"I missed you," he breathed. She turned back to him, her eyes glistening.
"You were never really gone." She replied in a whisper as low as her father's, then gave a permissive nod in the direction of the kitchen. "Tell mom I'd like a cola, but you can take your time about it."
Michael's heart swelled with joy. Heather was his gift, she always had been. His mind flew back to the night she was born, the night he drove like a maniac to the hospital with his labouring wife in the back seat, praying fervently that everything would be fine, and later as he held the tiny girl in his arms, feeling proud to have contributed something so wonderful to the world as his daughter.
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